Please tell us a bit about yourself to gain immediate access to this piece of content

First name: *

Last name: *

Email: *

* These fields are required.

cancel

Heard about earcons?

Blog

Heard About Earcons?

Mar 16, 2015 · Posted by Brian S.

An earcon is a little sound made to increase the usability of some device or system. It’s abstract and conveys a relationship with that device or system. Multiple earcons relate to one another. An earcon delivers a sound message.
Listen to these examples:

A little sound telling you what’s going on with something. It’s not speech and not music, although it may contain traces of either. You hear it in conjunction with a system state or with a user action. It doesn’t just happen for its own sake: it’s a reference, a correlation.

EARCON-ISH

The examples above are all probably recognizable from even your own devices. Before this full-blown earconography, its ancestors permeated our modern lives. BUZZ: The spin-cycle is over. DING-DING: Your keys are still in the ignition. BEEP: The scanner has read the barcode. BUHMP: The keypad has logged your input. BOOONG: Your number is up. Adam West-era Batman messages coming to us in simple sine and square wave format.

Sound designers had to later figure out what the deletion of a “file” or receiving a “friend request” sounded like. What about minimizing a “window” or incorrectly entering a “password”? If one takes the metaphors literally, one might use the sounds of surfaces or movements (files, windows, etc). That would not be an earcon. That would be something called an “auditory icon.”

Auditory icons are used for the same reasons earcons are, but take the metaphor literally. They’re supposed to sound exactly like something we’re already familiar with. Earcons must remain abstract and form an internal kind of consistency. Earcons are unique in that they convey messages without having to be literal.

A FEW EXAMPLES FROM SKYPE

File Transfer

Earconography continues to evolve. We’re still getting those relatively simple sound messages, but it’s not just buzzes and dings anymore. There is now a sense of subtlety, a sense of informing rather than alerting. We can even use the earcon to convey a sense of attitude about the event it’s informing us of. It can reflect our brand values.

Skype is a great example. The Skype earcons sound like Skype earcons. They play on telephone sounds, sonar, and bubbles without trying to indicate those things. They have a sense of playfulness. They have an internal kind of logic.

Here’s a bundle of Skype sounds. Listen to how they all hang together and the brand coming through.

Complete and Fail end differently. Here is already a big idea, because it didn’t have to be like this. Skype might have just divided their sound messages into two camps: positive outcomes and negative outcomes. The positive side could have its one sound and the negative side could have its one sound. Anytime, for example, a call successfully ended or a file successfully transferred, the user would just hear that sound, and that’s all it was ever going to be. If the sound would have conveyed a message in a short, abstract way, it would have properly been called an earcon.

Skype took this other approach, and it has a different kind of impact. When you listen to these sounds, you’re likely aware that they’re not buzzing or beeping at you. Listen to them a few times over. You’ll be able to pick out individual pieces.

Even in that kernel piece (really the “incoming” sound), there is so much.

I hear a click, an ascending perfect fifth, and an echo. It has a tiny fade-in and an obvious fade-out. It’s not too fast, but still terse. It’s warm, but stands out (gets my attention) over the music in my headphones. It’s reminiscent of some submarine equipment, maybe, but it doesn’t sound like anything else I’ve heard before. It sounds like a Skype earcon.

Log in / Log out

One more Skype example: the start-up and sign-out sounds. When the user logs into Skype, the “success” message:

I get to the office before anyone else in the morning and so hear this sound more than anyone, as each laptop is switched on, one by one. It wasn’t until I started researching Skype’s earconography that I ever heard the log out sound.

It pretends to be the reverse of the log in. On log in, the pitch glides up. On log out, it glides down. That’s the most obvious feature between the two. Log in fades in a bit more slowly. Log out sort of has a false start, balloons up rapidly, and slowly fades out, really emphasizing time and space (through the echo).

But it is not the exact reverse. The pop still comes at the end of both. That’s a key difference. The simple explanation is that log out should convey a sense of finality, an endpoint to being logged in. The user needs to know for sure that she is logged out and that it is final. The pop helps make that point.

The slightly more involved interpretation goes like this: Log in and log out are the same type of success, i.e. system completion of a user command. Unlike a file failing to transfer, there’s nothing intrinsically negative about logging out. These earcons both communicate “success,” but one is an opposite kind of success than the other. It’s the gliding pitch that conveys the message in each.

And that message depends a little bit on figurative associations. Logging in is the start of something, so that earcon gets the ascending pitch treatment. Logging out is the end of something and so receives the opposite pitch treatment. This convention is used loosely. In other words, the glide is not mimicking some particular thing in the world.

We recognize it because it’s baked into our speech patterns, our oral art forms, and music. An approaching body has a higher pitch to an observer than a retreating body. And so on. There are many corollaries in the world around us. Skype has taken those notions and applied them to an idea (logging out/in) that doesn’t really exist anywhere else other than computing. It’s a very “earcon-y” way to approach this challenge.

THIS IS AN EARCON

An earcon is a little, abstract sound to clue you in on the state of some device. The fun part for design is that we get to make most of it up. That’s also the difficult part. We’re also required to build a vocabulary out of the earcons we create.

No matter how useful some computing metaphor may be (files, recycle bins, closing an app), an earcon certainly is not the literal interpretation of it (that would be an “auditory icon”). But it is not merely random either. Earcons can carry a product’s brand identity even into the aural space.

Earcons can employ conventions from rhetoric, music, and prior attempts at synthetic sound, but the point of all of it is to help the user accomplish her task, to disambiguate, to be more efficient. They also can sound beautiful and delightful.

TALK with US

Digital Health Expertise to Support Your Success.

PointClear Solutions’ strategy, design, development and management services can help elevate your brand reputation, grow your market share and boost your revenues — all in record time. Connect with us to learn more

Complete the form below, so that we can connect you with the right person. You’ll hear from a member of our team shortly.

DAVID KARABINOS

CEO, PRESIDENT & BOARD CHAIRMAN

As President and CEO of PointClear Solutions, David works with the board and executive team driving the vision and strategies of the company. His 36+ years of technology and business experience have helped PointClear achieve exceptional and steady growth since he joined the company in 2010. David honed his skills during the first 18 years of his career in Fortune 500 companies. Since then he has used those skills to create and build numerous companies including eHealthClaim, EquaTerra, Halo Monitoring, American Bank of Huntsville, Harvest Business Advisors and PointClear Solutions. David earned a BS in Business Management/Finance from the University of Alabama Birmingham.

BLAINE ANDERSON

BOARD DIRECTOR, FOUNDER

Blaine co-founded PointClear in 2006 and has been heavily involved in all aspects of the company as it has grown from a startup to a market leader. Blaine started his career at NASA and spent 17 years there studying vibration and acoustic effects in the Space Station and the Space Shuttle programs. Prior to PointClear, Blaine was involved at startups in the healthcare and software development areas, including eHealthClaim and ComFrame. Blaine earned an engineering degree from Auburn University, and currently serves as a mentor at numerous incubators in the Nashville area.

Daren McCormick

COO, EVP & BOARD DIRECTOR

As Chief Operating Officer, Daren works closely with the company’s leadership to guide and direct the day-to-day operations of the company. For over 25 years, Daren has served in progressively more responsible leadership positions across a wide range of privately held and publicly traded companies, including “Fortune” companies. Daren has dedicated his career to the delivery of creative solutions in the healthcare information technology marketplace. Daren holds a degree in Computer Science with a concentration in Software Engineering.

NEAL EVANS, PhD

BOARD DIRECTOR, FOUNDER

Neal Evans, PhD., is both a founder and board member at PointClear Solutions. His interests include artificial intelligence, computational physics, and evolutionary algorithms. His contributions range from the theoretical to the practical, including advances in machine learning, physics, and theoretical optics, and application of these concepts to health informatics. He is a member of the American Physical Society (APS), the Optical Society of America (OSA), and the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE). He has published in scientific journals and books. Neal is a former board member of the A.G. Gaston Boys & Girls Club and volunteers for Carpenter’s Hands in Birmingham, Alabama.

LEE FARABAUGH

BOARD DIRECTOR, FOUNDER

Lee Farabaugh is both a member of the Board of Directors and founder of PointClear Solutions. She is a senior technology design, operations, and innovation expert, with more than a decade of experience in financial technology (fintech) and healthcare IT. Currently, Lee is serving as chief operating officer of Core10, a company that she also co-founded. Lee holds a bachelor’s degree in studio art from Wake Forest University, a master’s degree in human-computer interaction from Georgia Tech, and a master’s degree in health informatics from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where she is an adjunct instructor. Before joining PointClear in 2006, she was a usability engineer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

SHAWN EWING

VICE PRESIDENT OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT

As Vice President of Project Management, Shawn oversees a team of project managers to ensure the successful delivery of client’s software development engagements. Shawn is a motivated, personable business professional with over 12 years of product and project management experience. Since joining PointClear Solutions in 2011, he has applied his project management skills to numerous projects spanning several months to multi-year engagements. He is accomplished in project management methodologies, web and mobile development projects, project planning, team building and communication. Shawn earned a BS in Education from Missouri State University and is a Certified Scrum Master (CSM).

THADD SELDEN

PRINCIPAL ARCHITECT

As a Principal Architect, Thadd helps PointClear Solutions design innovative and scalable web applications and mobile app back-ends. Thadd has a degree in Physics and Math and started his career in defense. After spending 7 years building ground control systems for unmanned systems, first for the Navy and later for Raytheon, Thadd moved on to work on web technologies. He has been using Ruby on Rails since its infancy and has helped launch dozens of successful web and mobile projects.

TOMMY WHITE

VICE PRESIDENT, SOLUTIONS MANAGEMENT

For more than 20 years, technology has been at the center of Tommy White’s career. Across multiple industries, including industrial automation, process control, banking, retail, and healthcare, he has used this central theme to make great ideas a reality. Among the leading international organizations with which Tommy has worked are Siemens, BBVA, and InfluenceHealth. Leaning on degrees in both computer science and psychology, he fully understands that solutions are not independent topics, but rather a choreographed dance between business, technologies, and end users.

Tommy has been a part of the PointClear Solutions team since early 2016 and serves as Vice President, Solutions Management. He is based out of the Birmingham, Alabama, office and his team is responsible for establishing the strategic services that PointClear clients and partners take advantage of for long-term planning, roadmap definition, and execution. PointClear’s proven Solutions process is both a core driver for success, and an accelerator for any multi-phase, multi-platform solutions.

SHAWN FARRAR

SOLUTIONS DIRECTOR

Solutions Director Shawn Farrar joined PointClear Solutions in 2011 and offers expertise in enterprise and business strategy, project management, product management, business analysis, and vendor management. Previously, he served as a global project manager at Apple and a manager, cloud systems, at Hertz Global Holdings. Shawn holds a Bachelor of Science degree in human factors from the University of Illinois and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in health informatics from Northwestern University.

MICHAEL ATKINS

VICE PRESIDENT, TECHNICAL SERVICES

Michael Atkins joined PointClear Solutions in 2017 and is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the company’s technical services functions, including management of a team of architects and engineers.

Before joining PointClear, Michael spent several years with Change Healthcare, where he served as the company’s director of Applications Development, Engagement Solutions. Prior to this, he was a director of Healthcare Clinical Solutions Development with Walgreens.

Michael holds a BPA in computer science and accounting from Mississippi State University.

CHRIS HAMMACK

VICE PRESIDENT, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

Chris Hammack brings to the PointClear Solutions team more than 20 years of healthcare industry experience. A seasoned sales and business development leader, he most recently served Greenway Health as a regional vice president. He offers expertise in population health and revenue cycle operations, among other areas of healthcare.

Chris holds a Bachelor of Science degree in marketing from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is also a Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (MCSE) and holds various other networking, management, and sales certifications, including one from the Sandler sales training program.

CHRIS KARABINOS

VICE PRESIDENT, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

Chris Karabinos has been with PointClear Solutions since 2011, serving in various business development positions, including sales, marketing and partnership development. As vice president of Business Development, he has helped develop PointClear’s business in the healthcare technology market nationally, as well as in the Southeast United States.

Previously, Chris served eHealthClaim, Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, and ChoicePoint. He is very active in the HIT community in Georgia, serving on the boards of TAG-Health, Health 2.0 Atlanta and Kennesaw State University’s Healthcare Management & Informatics School. Chris has also served on the HIT Leadership Summit’s Steering Committee since 2012. Chris holds a Bachelor of Science degree in industrial engineering from Auburn University. He resides in Atlanta, Georgia.